


Blue

by tinylilremus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb watches Jester paint, Campaign 2 spoilers, F/M, Fluff, and Jester surprises him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 02:19:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16188053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinylilremus/pseuds/tinylilremus
Summary: Caleb has a favourite colour.





	Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm one of like five people that ship this, but they're both just so goddamn adorable that they pulled me out of my writing slump, so I owe them a lot.

Caleb has always been partial to the colour blue. As a child of the Empire, who rarely saw the sky beyond the grey clouds obscuring it most of the time, it had always instilled a sort of hope that there was more. Somehow, despite everything, something good would break through.

He couldn't have ever imagined being surrounded by quite this much of it. It stretches all the way across the sky, broken only by the occasional wisp of cloud. It lays spread out around the ship on all sides, broken only by the bright skittering reflection of the sun.

It also sits a few feet away from him on the deck, painting, wearing an endearing expression midway between concentration and bliss.

Caleb sinks further back into the shadow he's using as protection, heeding Fjord's warnings about the sun and pale skin, and steals glances at her over the top of the book he was only barely reading anyway. He can't help but smile at the way she has completely commandeered the left staircase to the forecastle, spreading out her painting implements so that attempting to pass that way would require quite the display of acrobatics. He knows she doesn't mean to and if anyone asked her to move, she would immediately and without question. This is just how she is when she starts creating.

As much as Jester is still a mystery to him in many ways, one thing he has learned in the times he has surreptitiously watched her painting or drawing is that she doesn't guard herself as much when she's concentrating on what she's making. And just how he sometimes finds himself mulling things over while poring over his well-read spell tomes, Caleb suspects this is when she does much of her reflecting and processing.

He finds the way she uses blue fascinating. Where Caleb finds solace and calm in the colour, Jester paints with it matter-of-factly, as if it is a necessary part of creating what she wants to create, but is not all that fazed by it. He supposes that as much as he is still excited to see so much blue, Jester has had no short supply of it her entire life, and it probably just doesn't hold the same interest for her.

By contrast, she has made it no secret that she loves the colour pink. It is embellished on her dress; it is the colour she requested Pumat Sol change her magical haversack; it is the colour of her spiritual weapon. The bright pink she favours is not a common colour in the natural world, so when she gets to paint with it, Caleb sees the faint smile on her face.

Caleb is grateful that it was probably too dark to see the pink of his cheeks after Jester heroically saved him from his feigned heart attack last night.

She seems to take as much joy from the colour yellow - swirling the brush around her page in bright happy strokes that bring to Caleb's mind the golden wildflowers that grew in the fields around his childhood village. It also briefly brings to mind the blazing gold of the fire that consumed his home, but he shakes his head clear.

He won't think about that now.

Jester paints her greens with relish, and Caleb finds the same unfamiliar and unwelcome sinking feeling in his stomach he feels whenever he sees her chancing glances at Fjord when she thinks no one is looking. She has known him the longest out of everyone and as such Caleb knows it makes far more sense for her attentions to be caught by him than any other member of the party, but some dark primal part of him simmers with frustration nonetheless.

He also knows what that probably means and he refuses to think about that either.

Caleb's heart catches as her hand hesitates over the purple for a moment or two before she picks it up. Molly's passing still hangs heavily over their party and he knows it weighs on Fjord, Yasha and Jester especially. However unfounded the idea, he knows that  they believe themselves partially responsible for his passing and though he has been consistent in his reminders that they are not to blame for what happened, he also knows what it is to have guilt eat away at the heart day after day. She closes her eyes for a moment as if in prayer before dipping her brush into the pot.

When she reaches for the red paint, he knows he's not imagining the small tears that pool briefly before she takes a deep breath and shakes them away. He feels a pang of regret on her behalf. She should have had more time with her mother and would have if not for the circumstances getting away from them. He makes a silent vow that he will help clear her name in Nicodranas so that the next time they visit, she will be able to have as much time with her mother as she wants.

He tells himself that this is something he would do for any of his friends, but he knows that it's a bit truer for her, which is an unsettling thought.

When she reaches for her pot of orange, Caleb is surprised that she looks up at him. Their eyes meet and, panicked, Caleb immediately buries his nose in his book. Though he had tried to avert them as quickly as possible, it wasn't fast enough to miss the surprise on Jester's face that their eyes had locked at all.

There's a beat or two of awkward silence before he hears her giggle slightly.

"Caaaleb, were you watching me?"

"No," he lies, desperately scrambling for any excuse. "I was just taking a pause between paragraphs to reflect on what I'd just read and happened to look at you just as you looked at me."

"Okay, if you say so," she says in that sing-song voice that should be annoying, but that tugs at the corners of his mouth and the edges of his heart every time. "I wouldn't blame you if you were though. I did save your life last night like the amazing and powerful cleric I am."

He knows he's blushing now and he damns his pale complexion for making it impossible to hide.

"Thanks again, Jester. I do appreciate it."

She looks as if she wants to say something more, but bites down on it with a smile and turns her attention back to her artwork instead. Caleb stares back down at his book, not daring to place his eyes anywhere else, though completely unable to absorb any of the words there. He can hear the blood in his ears coursing in time with the thudding of his heart, and knows that the heat creeping up his neck has little to do with the warm sun above him.

This is very much not good.

A few minutes pass in which Caleb tries and fails to continue his book, wondering if Jester's eyes are on him, and at times almost feeling them there, though he can't bring himself to look up and test this theory, which is why he jumps a few moments later when he feels the book being tugged down to reveal Jester, now on her knees right in front of him.

"Caleb, are you sure you’ve been keeping out of the sun like Fjord warned? You're looking pretty red right now." Her eyes are alight with mischief and he knows she's teasing him as he finds she is she is wont to do. "The sun can be really bad for you, you know."

"I have been trying to be careful as far as possible, but thank you for the reminder."

He wishes the wood below him would give way so that he could fall through it and escape this embarrassment.

"You're welcome," she grins. "You know, I'm glad you decided to go back to reading because otherwise you might have spoiled the surprise."

"The surprise?" Caleb asks. He blames the salt in the air for his impossibly dry mouth.

"The _surprise_ ," she says dramatically, bringing her hand out from behind her back and handing Caleb a small scrap of parchment on which she has painted the perfect likeness of Frumpkin in his cat form. Caleb's eyes widen in shock and he finds, despite the warm air, his hands are shaking slightly.

He doesn't know what to say and he can see something in her expression falter as he sits in stunned silence.

"Yeah, you know, I thought it was really kind of you to let Beau have Frumpkin for a while after losing Professor Thaddeus, and I know how much you like having him as a cat, so I thought I'd make you something that you can look at in those times when he's not around or he's being another creature. Do you... do you like it?"

"Like it? Jester, I... I don't know what to say. This is the nicest gift I have ever been given. Thank you very much."

He dares to look into her eyes then and for once it seems she is as caught off guard as he is most of the time around her. She blinks a moment later, however, and her face returns to its usual jovial state.

"You're welcome," she says, leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek and where her lips touch blazes furiously.

She bounds off to gather her paints a moment later and with one last brilliant smile, she turns briefly back to Caleb.

"The paint is still drying so you should be careful with it for the next while or else it will get all smudgy."

And then she disappears below deck, leaving Caleb in stunned silence once more.

He spends the longest time staring down at the painting, memorising the brush strokes, marveling at the way what looked like chaos earlier is now cohesive and beautiful.

When he's sure that the paint is dry, he tucks his gift carefully between the pages of the small book he keeps in his breast pocket.

The sky has never been so blue.

 


End file.
